Thursday, April 16, 2009

Wow. I just found a reason to rent Ballisitc: Ecks vs. Sever.

It's the season for Matrix flashbacks on the web. Recently, XKCD marked the occasion of the film's 10th anniversary (10th?!?!?!?) and just yesterday, the score from Trinity's introductory scene came up on my MP3 player's shuffle.

Which made me think of Don Davis. He's the composer that created the orchestral score for the film. It's always been my belief that some of the greatest directors simply wouldn't be nearly as effective in many of their films without their talented composers. Hitchcock and Herrmann. Spielberg and Williams. The Coen Brothers and Carter Burwell (though Carter didn't have a heck of a lot to do in No Country for Old Men). Similarly, as visually innovative as the original Matrix was, I've always considered the score to also be a big part of the film's effectiveness.

So I went looking on IMDb to see what else Don Davis been doing. The answer is, outside of the Matrix sequels and other Matrix-related projects, not a hell of a lot. The biggest films he's done in the past ten years are Behind Enemy Lines, Ballistic: Ecks Vs Sever and The Marine. Of the three, I've only seen the first, which was not that memorable (though I remember that it did ironically include a bullet time-esque sequence). The other two are not highly regarded, one being based on a video game and the other featuring a pro wrestler in his first starring role.

Good lord, people. Somebody in Hollywood hire this guy! I'm sure he's capable of doing wonders for films that don't involve Keanu Reeves in a trenchcoat.